Robert Mugabe’s desperate denial continues

Robert Mugabe nearly gave the entire country a heart attack last night. In the late afternoon, a ZTV broadcasting unit was driven into State House, where Mugabe and the military commanders were negotiating his departure from office. After Saturday, when millions of Zimbabweans took to the streets to call for his retirement – and then the Sunday meeting of the Zanu PF Central Committee at which he was summarily dismissed from the leadership of the Party and replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa – we all expected a humble and contrite Mugabe to announce he was stepping down.

We waited from 7pm to 9pm for him to come on television live; when he finally did, the setting was quite bizarre. Mugabe was sitting behind what looked like a coffin draped in a white sheet, behind him were two flags and on either side, were the commander of the armed forces, General Chiwenga and on the other side a rather rotund Catholic priest.